Collaboration will grow local oil firms into regional powerhouses

Collaboration will grow local oil firms into regional powerhouses

Nestoil Limited has proffered ways to transform local oil companies in the country into regional powerhouses capable of developing the economies of the West African region to the whole of Africa.
Group Managing Director, Dr. Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi said collaboration among the oil companies will open them up to a lot of opportunities springing up across the new frontiers in the industry.

He disclosed this at the West African International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (WAIPEC), where he was a member of the panel to discuss how Indigenous contractors can be transformed into regional powerhouses.

Obiejesi said collaboration which can be through a ‘Central hub model, Multiple hub models or that of Pure Organic model’ when adopted will reduce rivalry among local firms which will save cost, increase expertise and shared values to the partners.

He mentioned the benefits accruable to other oil companies through their 59-hectare base in Abuloma, Rivers state, deep into the ocean where a lot of fabrication activities go on with dockyard availability, and how other firms can come in, do their contracts using the facility therein and move the products when done instead of thinking to expend extra costs due to non-availability of the facility to them.

He said there is a huge opportunity inherent in the West African market yet to be tapped as if there was no market there would be no opportunity, but the availability of market is why transformation is being touted.

Represented by Nnamdi Ihekweazu, Head of business development, he said solutions to human capital development issues can be gotten from local expertise which has been their core message since inception as 95 percent of their workforce are Nigerians.

“Our belief in local capacity was why we were able to be the first firm to pioneer alternative evacuation system to stop oil theft permanently in the industry and we were able to achieve this due to the trust we placed on our workforce”, he asserted.

He said they are open to replicate the system to other oil companies due to the enormous benefit that the country can get from it.

Nestoil Limited is the flagship company of the Obijackson Group, one of the fastest growing conglomerates in Sub-Saharan Africa, with vast investments in Oil and Gas Exploration, Production, Pressure Vessel Fabrication, Power Generation, Dredging and Marine Logistics, Aviation, Telecommunications, Real Estate, Civil and Infrastructural Construction.